Lily's Travels: 07/18

7/31/2018

Diving day 2

We woke up to a storm this morning with the island covered in clouds and heavy rain. We thought our dive day would be cancelled. However, the rain slowed over the morning hours and we were able to do all 3 dives.

I rented an underwater camera for the day - canon G15 - and took some great shots.

Dive 1 - Gaya Gardens - I was getting used to the camera and took a lot of background/coral shots as well as random fish pictures. Not sure if I missed any cool fish sightings.

Dive 2 - Pyramids - we started off by seeing a black tipped shark! and then a huge lobster, cuttlefish, stingray, and a burrfish, and a school of barracudas

Dive 3 - Ron's Reef - best dive yet! We saw cuttlefish, a stingray, lots of lionfish (in their proper habitat!), burrfish, batfish, black spotted pufferfish, porcupine fish, and a seahorse!! I'm so happy.

7/30/2018

Pictures from Tabin Wildlife Reserve

angry pig tailed macaque

crested serpent eagle

fruit at lodge

tiger leech

bread fruit

Tortoise

mud vulcano

imperial green pigeon

gibbon

Gibbon family

Borneo Gibbon

Diving Day 1

We initially planned to do the 9-day jungle trekking/best of Borneo wildlife tour and then finish off in Kuala Kumpur. However, we changed last minute to include a couple days in Kota Kinabalu with some diving in the Tunkul Abdul Rahman Marine Park instead. This was a great idea.

We booked with Down Below Adventures - a UK based dive company that also does some other excursions in Borneo. As part of the same package, we're staying at the Pacific Sutera Hotel on Sutera Harbour which is just across from this marine park and its 5 islands. We got the sea view room with Pacific club access which you saw in my prior post comes with an amazing free breakfast as well as evening cocktails with snacks. In fact, the snacks were so yummy we didn't even have room for dinner. The room itself is great also on the 12th floor (top floor of hotel) over looking the harbor and marine park islands.

It was a short 2 minute walk to the harbor where we go picked up for the dive center today on Gaya Island. We got a 3-dive/day package with lunch included. Our first dive site was North Sulug. The water was super warm - 89 degrees F at the surface but there were several very noticeable thermoclines so I was glad to have had a wetsuit on. When we first got in the water, I was so in love with how different the coral looked from the Caribbean that I couldn't concentrate on anything else. We also saw a MASSIVE school of fish - larger than anything I'd seen before. I also loved the bright colors of the sea slugs here. Love the lettuce sea slug! I also love the different star fish, and blue star fish.

Our second dive site was Midreef. We saw a cute little sting ray, a large porcupine fish, razor fish, and a cool nudibranch.

Our third dive site was The Rock. We saw a hiding burr fish, electric clams, and another massive school of fish. As soon as we entered the water, our divemaster pointed out a reef shark but I'm not sure if I really saw it.

I can't wait to do more diving here!